Review of American Teen (2008) by Mandy H — 11 Nov 2008

A documentary is supposed to document facts, events, people objectively without editorializing or manipulation. Therefore AMERICAN TEEN like many recent docos and for that matter reality tv is an EPIC FAIL!!! My main problem with this is although you can't deny what we see to have happened it is so apparent that the situations and interactions between the teenagers (or should I say characters as that is how they unfortunately come across to us) have been forced quite often.

Also asking the question "which one were we?" out of 5 possible stereotypes is another frustration. How can anyone begin to pigeon hole us? Whenever this "doco" threatens to reveal pathos or reveal glimmers of the kid's actual personality, their fears and hopes and true quirks, the filmmakers revert back to the simple and downright shameful and offensive two dimensional portrayals.

Perhaps they wanted this to reach a wider audience and hoped the public were dumd enough to lap it up. Sadly they may be right.